Last week Achiote’s, a Mexican Restaurant located in Southern California, settled a sexual harassment suit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission involving a manager secretly using his cell phone to videotape male workers going to the bathroom. The victims of the videotaping complained. One called the San Diego police. An Assistant Manager with Achiote’s was charged with disturbing the peace in connection with the videotaping of his coworkers in the bathroom. However, according to the lawsuit, the restaurant retaliated against those who complained by cutting their hours. The lawsuit followed. Retaliation against employees who have complained of sexual harassment is illegal. If you believe you’re experiencing harassment at work, talk to an employment attorney about your rights.

Last Thursday a Fayette County, Kentucky jury awarded eight African-American men $5.3 million dollars in a hostile work environment case against UPS. The plaintiffs worked for UPS in Lexington, Kentucky. At trial, evidence was presented that the plaintiffs were routinely subjected to racist comments, including the n-word, jungle bunny and porch monkey. Evidence was presented that an effigy of an African-American UPS driver was hung from the ceiling for four days. The men went to Human Resources several times to complain but things did not improve. Instead, for some, things got worse. The jury found that UPS retaliated against 2 drivers who complained by having managers conduct extended “ride alongs” as a subtle form of intimidation. The lawsuit was filed in 2014. Trial began April 4, 2016. The jury deliberated about 8 hours before rendering the verdict against UPS.

If you paid an electric bill to Duke between 2005 and 2008, the deadline to file a claim is today. Residential customers could receive payments of $40 to $400 and commercial customers could receive up to $6,000 each. “It takes less than five minutes to make a claim on the website, and customers do not need to find the notice that was mailed to them,” said Randy Freking. Follow this link to file. To find out more read this article in The Cincinnati Enquirer.

Tune into WLW at 4:45 today to listen to Randy Freking talk about this case and what it means for Duke Energy electric ratepayers.

On March 31, 2016, five players from the U.S. Women’s National Soccer team filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accusing the U.S. Soccer Federation of paying them less than their male counterparts in violation of the Equal Pay Act.

Carli Lloyd, Hope Solo, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe and Becky Sauerbrunn, who are all members of the World Cup championship team, have unsuccessfully tried to negotiate for higher wages through their union. The fact that these players have a collective bargaining agreement, and subsequent memorandum of understanding may have an impact on their Equal Pay Act claims.

The pay disparity between the men’s and women’s teams is astounding. For example, each year, the U.S. men’s and women’s national teams are required to play a minimum of 20 friendly matches. The top five players from the men’s team receive $406,000 in compensation on average per year for these games, compared to the top five women who receive only $72,000. For a World Cup victory, a male U.S. soccer player could earn $390,000, while Lloyd, for example, only earned $75,000 for last year’s World Cup victory. Further, men on the U.S. team earn $69,000 for making the Word Cup roster, while the women only receive $15,000.

Although the men’s World Cup generates more money globally than the women’s event, the U.S. Soccer Federation has forecasted that the men’s U.S. Soccer team will lose approximately $1 million in 2017, while the women’s team will generate a profit of $5.2 million.

We will have to see whether the collective bargaining agreement and/or memorandum of understanding (in which the union agreed to this compensation) will impact the claims alleged by the five players, or if the U.S. Soccer Federation will come to an agreement with the players before either the EEOC or a court weighs in. For more information, read these articles from Forbes, The New York Times and NPR.

Last Tuesday Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant signed into law a bill permitting businesses, individuals and religious organizations to deny goods and services to LGBT persons if providing such goods and services would offend “sincerely held religious beliefs.” The law takes effect July 1, 2016. This move by the state prevents cities and towns from putting in place anti-discrimination protections for LGBT persons. There has been widespread criticism of the law. The Mississippi Economic Council, the ACLU and numerous other organizations have announced their opposition to the law. Elected officials in various parts of the country have banned non-essential state travel to Mississippi. Bryan Adams cancelled a concert. Some of the state’s largest employers, including MGM Resorts, Toyota, Nissan, and Tyson Foods have denounced the law. More than a dozen corporations, including Coca-Cola, GE and Whole Foods have joined with the Human Rights Campaign in calling for repeal of the law. Similar bills have been proposed and discussed in a number of states and localities, but the threat of losing business has often shut discussions down. We’ll see how this plays out.

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